February 2015
13
S
afety
& S
ecurity
persecuted and first BOMs can already be cal-
culated, even if there will be changes through-
out the project. With regard to the finished
product, this provides a much higher plan-
ning reliability, especially compliance with
standards for EMC and product safety may
already be involved. Furthermore it offers a
largely secured estimate in terms of the cost
of production.
A dedicated time and task scheduling for
hard- and software development could thus
be derived already at the time of order. In par-
ticular, the RFID card reader posed a special
challenge. In order not to disturb the other,
highly sensitive devices that are installed in
the immediate vicinity of PoLo, the RFID
reader is activated only for a short period
of time when the motion sensor detects
activity in the vicinity. Therefore, a
special fine tuning was necessary, to
only trigger the sensor when a card
is placed on the intended spot on
the surface and not when a per-
son moves in front of the device
or uses other panels in the envi-
ronment. A positive side effect
of this solution is the reduced
power consumption, which is
clearly noticeable in the number of
installed devices and the continu-
ous operation of PoLo.
Considering the small size and the
requirements for long-term availability
and performance, every detail had to fit in
the development of hard- and software – also
because of the short duration of time up to
the delivery of the devices. In order to achieve
maximum performance in a compact design
a standardized Qseven embedded computer
module from congatec was chosen. The PoLo
supplier developed a base board that was tai-
lored to meet the requirements of the overall
device, as well as an orthogonally oriented
interface board which leads out all interfaces
from the device without the use of unreli-
able cable assemblies. This technically proven
approach shortens the development time
required compared to a complete custom
development and also minimizes the develop-
ment risks for the project considerably. More
than 80 custom development projects in the
area of embedded computing that have been
implemented by the iesy™ approach in recent
years prove how successful this approach is.
All the hardware including the touchscreen is
controlled by a customized embedded Linux
for Freescale i.MX6. Drivers for the touch
controller and the RFID reader have been
specifically developed and optimized. The
software development team put a particular
emphasis on the software components and
libraries that were required by the customer
to achieve maximum performance and sup-
port for the overall system as well as reduced
power consumption. All functionalities were
already available throughout the prototyping
phase and could thus be tested extensively.
The final implementation of all components,
as well as an extensive testing as part of the
total quality management approach, on which
the iesy™ Project Management is based, round
off the project. The consistent use of standard-
ized components and their individual adapta-
tion to customer needs laid the foundation
for the timely delivery of the new PoLo
generation.
What made the project a success story
was the fact that all processes were
subjected to a strict quality manage-
ment from beginning to end to meet
both the safety requirements as well
as the quality requirements of the cus-
tomer. With the delivery of the finished
products, however, the TQM approach
behind iesy™ Project Management does
not end. Rather, the support findings are
used to gather new information for future
device generations and make them available
for other projects. This way, several objec-
tives are achieved simultaneously, which
are extremely important for customers and
will become even more important in future:
reduction of throughput times (faster time-
to-market), reduction of cost (efficiency) and
quality assurance.
n
Figure 2. Air traffic controller workstations at DFS with PoLo devices
(source: DFS Deutsche Flugsicherung GmbH)
Figure 3. Standardized i.MX6 Qseven
embedded computer module
(source: congatec)
Figure 4. iesy™ Project Management cycle
with five consecutive steps
(source: ies)
